Agroforestry system as a sustainable strategy for poverty reduction and degraded soils recovery

The region of Alto Jequitinhonha, Minas Gerais, Brazil, is characterized by a subsistence economy based on familiar agriculture (Galizoni 2000).Since the sixties it was clear that the traditional extensive slash-and-burn agriculture wasn’t sustainable any longer. The growth of the populationhad obliged families in sharing the propriety out. As a consequence, land fallowed for increasingly shorter times strongly reducing the fertility of soil and overall agricultural productivity Ribeiro et al., 2004). In this region an NGO,Centro de Agricultura Alternativa Vicente Nica(CAV), is implementing an agroforestry project with farmers in order to recover the degraded lands of the area.